The present invention relates to the field of voltage regulators. More specifically, this invention relates to voltage regulators in a computer system.
Computer systems typically contain a number of integrated circuits (ICs). Many ICs, such as microprocessors, are defined with specific power and voltage requirements. At the time an IC is designed, the specifications for the circuit boards which implement these ICs are also defined to accommodate the power and voltage requirements of the ICs. Difficulty occurs when there is a change in IC design which requires redefining a specific voltage or power requirement. This is common either during the design, manufacturing, or testing phases of production, or when an upgrade is desired after production.
Typically in these situations, two approaches have been taken. A first approach is to completely redesign the circuit board to accommodate for the power and voltage requirements of the new IC. This approach is typically costly and undesirable, especially when a large number of circuit boards have already been designed and manufactured to meet an original specification. The second approach is to design a circuit board which has the flexibility of adapting to several ICs with various power and voltage requirements. This second approach is more desirable from an economical standpoint, but is also more difficult from a design standpoint.
There have been several attempts to design a circuit board which can provide different regulated power and voltage levels to specific ICs on the circuit board. One approach was the implementation of on-circuit board voltage regulators and flexible motherboards. Both the on-circuit board regulator and the flexible motherboard designs allowed the preset voltage level of the system to be reset to a new voltage level for specific ICs. This was accomplished through a dedicated set of circuitry on the motherboard. The circuitry was adjustable for varying the voltage required by the components in the system.
The voltage and power supplied by both the on-circuit board voltage regulator and flexible motherboard, however, were limited by the definitions of their design. In order to maximize the flexibility of a circuit board design, the regulator and the circuit board had to implement the maximal solution which was often the most expensive solution. Thus, if 10% of a manufacturer""s product line is comprised of microprocessors which required a specialized voltage regulation, the manufacturer had to implement the solution for specialized voltage regulation for every one of its circuit boards. This was necessary if the manufacturer wished to use a standard circuit board for all its products. This implementation was wasteful when a system was not required to utilize a specialized solution which was more expensive. On the other hand, if a maximal solution was not implemented in a design and the dedicated circuitry on the board was unable to be adjusted to meet the specific voltage and power requirements of the system, then the on-circuit board voltage regulator or flexible motherboard had no utility and the circuit board had to be redesigned.
In addition to having to implement the maximal solution for the board, both the on-circuit board voltage regulator and flexible motherboard had the drawback of not being able to adjust the power or the tolerance level that was delivered to the application. For example, a board that was set with a 3.0xc2x110% volt supply could be reset to 3.1xc2x110% volts. The board, however, could not be reset with a 3.0xc2x15% volts supply, or be adjusted to deliver 4 amps if it was originally designed to deliver 3 amps. In other words, in the past if the tolerance or power requirements of an IC was modified, the circuit board had to be redesigned.
Another approach to making the circuit board more flexible was through an on-chip regulator design. An on-chip regulator design integrated a voltage regulator and an IC in the same package to provide on-package regulation of voltage and power to the IC. Since the voltage and power regulation for the IC was done within the same package, no modifications were needed on the circuit board for implementing a new IC with different voltage or power requirements.
A major drawback of the on-chip regulator design was thermal isolation. Since the regulator component and the IC component were packaged closely to each other, the heat dissipated by the components affected the overall performance of the entire unit. Thermal isolation limited the total power that both components dissipated. In conjunction with the problem of thermal isolation, heat sinks used a large percentage of the available package space in the on-chip regulator. This reduced the available space for the regulation component and required the level of integration for the regulator to be high, which was expensive.
Thus, an economical and efficient power regulation device which enables the delivery of specified voltage and power level to specified components on a circuit board is desired. The present invention overcomes the drawbacks of the prior art by providing a detachable power regulating device which may be removed from the motherboard and replaced with a second detachable power regulating device when components on the circuit board require a different power or voltage delivery. The present invention utilizes a design which allows it to be positioned at a location on the circuit board that maximizes the advantages of locality while minimizing the effects of heat dissipation.
The present invention relates to an apparatus for providing regulated power and voltage to components on a circuit board.
In one embodiment, the invention comprises a detachable power regulating device which regulates power and voltages to predetermined levels. The power regulating device interfaces the computer system through a socket connector. When it is desired to alter the power and voltage levels delivered to components on the circuit board, the original power regulating device is removed from the socket connector and replaced with a second power regulating device which provides different power and voltage levels.
The present invention provides multiple voltage and power levels to IC components that run on multiple voltage and power levels. The present invention also provides systems utilizing a plurality of ICs running on various voltage and power levels with their required voltages.
In accordance with the present invention, the regulator can be positioned close to the components it is regulating without occupying valuable real estate on the circuit board. Hence, the invention achieves stringent circuit tolerances by minimizing the losses associated between the regulator and the component which it is servicing. The design of the present invention also minimizes the effects of heat dissipation of the regulator circuitry.